Solidarity 160, 8 October 2009

Migrants in Calais are on hunger strike in an attempt to win asylum in France. The migrants, who are from Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, and elsewhere say they are will strike until western countries offer them asylum. They are also demanding that no migrant in Calais is readmitted to Greece, Italy or Malta (where they fear immediate deportation). The hunger strike follows the destruction of the migrants’ camp in the town by the French riot police. The camp of makeshift tents and shelters, known as “the jungle”, was built by migrants afer the French government closed the Red Cross camp...

The Conservative conference has confirmed what we can expect from a Tory government: deep cuts, attacks on the working class, and radical right-wing politics. The £23 billion of cuts Shadow Chancellor George Osborne will take Osborne only one sixth of the way towards his stated goal of halving the deficit. In other words, for all Osborne's spin about openness and honesty, this is the tip of the iceberg. Listen to Jonathan Loynes of the Capital Economics consultancy: “It is clear much deeper spending cuts, probably involving huge cuts in public sector employment will be needed.” Public sector...

The Policing and Crime Bill which is set to come into effect this November, will, among other things, outlaw “paying for [the] sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force”. The Bill must pass through the House of Lords once more before it becomes law. Based Swedish legislation. The overall effect of the new law could be to criminalise everyone who purchases sex and make sex work much less safe. Catherine Stephens works as a prostitute dominatrix in London. She disavows everything the Bill claims to provide: “Everyone in the industry will be less safe, and it will play into the hands of...

I am standing in the general election in the south-east London constituency of Camberwell and Peckham, against New Labour deputy leader and loyal New Labour hack Harriet Harman. I am standing to assert a workers’ voice in politics and build the fight for a workers’ government. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne says he wants £23 billion of cuts. Yet this huge figure, involving deep cuts in the public sector and a massive attack on the living standards of millions of workers, will take him only one sixth of the way towards his stated goal of halving the deficit. In other words, this is the tip of...

Engineering construction workers have voted to reject a new two-year pay-and-conditions deal despite a recommendation to accept both from union officials and from their national shop stewards' committee. The deal was rejected 53% to 47% among Unite members. We do not know the figures in the other union in the industry, GMB. According to engineering construction workers who spoke to Solidarity, the vote against the deal was fuelled by a new spate of contractors using sub-contractors with whole workforces temporarily "posted" from elsewhere in Europe to undercut the existing union agreement...

The Vestas wind turbine blade workers on the Isle of Wight have called a meeting for Friday 9 October to discuss the future of their campaign for Friday 9 October. Vestas, a big Danish-based multinational, announced the close of their blade-manufacture operation on the Isle of Wight - the only sizeable one in Britain - on 28 April. The workers occupied the Newport factory from 20 July to 7 August to stop closure, and then blockaded it until the blockade was broken up by large numbers of police on 22 September. Mark Smith, one of the Vestas occupiers, told Solidarity that prospects on the...

On 6 October Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, announced that he was writing to the public sector salary review bodies calling on them to “freeze the pay of 40,000 senior public servants in 2010-11. And he recommended that about 700,000 middle-ranking public servants, including doctors, dentists and prison officers, get a rise of between 0 per cent and 1 per cent”. Later the same day shadow Chancellor George Osborne announced the Tories' pay freeze. In 2011 he wants all public sector workers, except for those earning less than £18,000 a year, to have their pay frozen. The pay freeze plans mean...

For workers' unity across Europe On 23 September thousands of GM workers from Germany joined Belgian carworkers to demonstrate in Antwerp against threatened job losses. With capitalism more and more international, that sort of workers' unity across borders is more and more necessary. Yet Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, the main union representing GM (Vauxhall) workers in Britain, has made it his chief complaint that current plans are more favourable to German than to British GM workers: "Unite's concerns over Magna's plans are growing as it becomes clear that the cuts will not...

A long-time Labour Party activist reports on some of the things at Labour Party conference which didn't reach the newspapers or the TV coverage. The Labour Party leadership put a lot of effort into trying to stop the rule change to have the 55 constituency Labour Party (CLP) delegates to the National Policy Forum elected by the membership at large rather than by a few hundred CLP delegates at national conference. Pat McFadden, Chair of the Labour Party National Policy Forum, was having delegates called out of the hall to meet him so that he could pull them into line, yet in the vote we had a...